They want their share
Q. My wife and her sister have a 25% stake in a house with their uncle. They’re now wondering if they can force him to sell it, because it’s been dragging on for ten years.
A. I imagine they will have been left the share in the house in a will – perhaps their father’s? It’s possible such a will gives the uncle the right to remain in the property until his death – if indeed he lives there now. You don’t say. If the uncle lives in the house and is elderly with no means of providing another home for himself it will be very difficult to get him out, even if on paper he has no right to stay. On the other hand if the uncle doesn’t live there the sisters will be able to claim their share. How they go about this will depend on whether the uncle is executor of a will dealing with the property, or whether they are simply joint owners. A visit to a solicitor specialising in this area will quickly resolve these questions.

Charity gift under threat
Q. My sister and I are single and in our late 60’s. We have no dependants and own a property worth about £500,000 including a separate building we intend to rent out. Our wills state that, on the death of either one of us, everything passes to the survivor, and on the survivor’s death the entire property passes to a registered church charity. We wonder however what would happen if one of us had to go into a nursing home: would we be required to sell up to pay the fees?
A. The local authority cannot assess your main property for care home fees purposes while one of you is still living there. However the separate building could well be taken into consideration. It may be an idea to give this, or indeed the whole property, to the charity at this stage while reserving the right to live there and receive income from the rented property. You should take detailed advice from a solicitor specialising in this area of the law. If you have any other assets inheritance tax may become a factor on the first death. However the charity itself is of course exempt from paying inheritance tax.

Extra tax on fuel
Q. My mother lives in a holiday home. The site owner supplies all services such as electricity, gas, water and sewerage. I noticed on my mother’s last quarterly bill that she was charged 17.5% VAT on all services except water. I understood VAT on fuels is 5%.
A. This is likely to be a mistake and your mother should query it with the site owner and ask for a refund. Under regulations introduced on 1st Jan 2003 the site owner can only charge for the electricity used and can only charge what he himself has been charged – in other words the site owner cannot resell gas and electricity at a profit. Even if, as a business, the site pays 17.5% VAT, it can only recover the lower rate in charges made to residents on the site.

Tale told by a fence
Q. My daughter’s neighbour has replaced his fence with a brick wall topped with a wooden fence up to the normal two metres. The problem is that he has bolted the supporting uprights to her side of the wall – the uprights usually signifying the owner of the wall. He refused to rectify this so she has written to him saying she will take the fence down and place it on his side. What is the legality of this? Is there a better way of dealing with it?
A. It’s unwise to fall out with neighbours if at all possible. On the other hand it’s important to stand your ground against encroachment. If the fence does indeed belong to the neighbour it should be built entirely on his property, and your daughter would certainly be within her rights to remove it from hers. The position of the uprights can signify ownership for this reason. But encroachment is so common that it’s not a reliable guide to fence ownership!

Passing strangers
Q. We have lived on a council estate for 40 years and bought our house ten years ago. Since a new neighbour moved in a large number of people have begun using the passageway we share with next door as a short cut into the next road. When I questioned one of the men he told me he knew the girl next door and she didn’t mind, but I find it frightening to have large numbers of strangers passing my back door.
A. If the property next door is still owned by the council you should have a word with your neighbour and your local housing office about the problem. The council will not want this to continue because eventually the short cut could become an established right of way. You may well be entitled to fasten either a door or a gate to the passageway and perhaps even lock it as long as you give your neighbour a key.